Leap of Fate

Here's a (probably) unpopular but nevertheless a surface-of-the-sun take:  the hysteria over the corona virus seems maybe a tad overblown so far, considering that tens of thousands of people in the US alone die every winter from, you know, the "regular" flu. This is not to say that the COVID-19 can't or won't be a real crisis, just that so far, it's not yet The Stand, you know?

But even if it disappears tomorrow, the fact is that it has already solidified a great many assumptions about the incompetence and corruption underpinning even basic service components of this Florida outhouse of an administration. Starting with the predictable mendacity of how basic vital information is released and communicated, to the abject, subservient controls put in place on people who dare speak the truth or express any skepticism over the handling of the situation, clearly these animals will not be happy until a sufficient number of casualties have been counted.

Then there's Iran, a country whose problems with the virus do seem to be increasing rapidly, and in no small part due to the incredible dishonesty and bad faith the US has displayed in abrogating the JCPOA, and dumping sanctions on Iran that has notable prevented them from obtaining the medical equipment necessary to prepare and combat an epidemic. The Obama administration had opened pandemic control and information offices in nearly fifty countries, including China; Trump closed eighty percent of them, while gutting the CDC here.

Sad to say, maybe this is what it takes now. It sucks that people have to die in order to (maybe, just maybe) get a sufficient number of people here to see just how pig-headed and malicious and stupid these fuckers really are. It's not hyperbole, it's not snark. These people are flat-out evil in their sheer indifference and irresponsibility. Literally, innocent people are dying simply because this sociopathic dipshit can't stand to be "wrong" about anything. Tell me again about karma.

This is the natural consequence of decades of right-wing pols, buttressed by talk-radio scumbags, doing everything they can to underfund and undermine competent governance, so they can then point at how government never works. The Trump cult is the apotheosis of that brutal ideal, purging even the whiff of competence, and replacing with pliant homunculi, notable only for their boot-licking prowess. So of course nothing works right anymore -- everyone who could do anything competently has been pushed out, or quit in disgust.

Take my assertion in the top paragraph that while the virus could be a big deal, that maybe it isn't really quite yet, that maybe there's a bit of hype and paranoia right now. I hope I'm wrong, but again, let's say I'm right and the whole thing just disappears over the weekend. No more casualties or deaths. It's done, they rush a vaccine to completion and production and the world is saved. It's not going to happen, but let's say for the sake of argument it does happen.

Even in that unlikely event, these people still deserve to be thrown out of office at once, for their sheer ineptitude. Because let's face it -- if this is how they're going to handle things when the industrial-strength mega-super-flu comes around, we're fucked, medically and economically. There is no plan in place for any of this, for rapid response, treatment, mitigation, any of it.

This should be a clear warning for natural disasters as well, because when the next Cat 5 hurricane finally drills Miami and puts it six feet underwater for a month, you'll have Pence with his dick in his hand, Kudlow scratching his neck waiting for his next eight-ball, and King Fuckface shitposting how it's all the Dummycrats' fault. That's a fucking guarantee, and we all know it.

I couldn't care less about the stock market, and not just because I don't have a portfolio to fret over. The only way to get the owner-donor class to have any skin in the game is for Fuckface to be bad for business. They don't care otherwise; a hundred million people could drop dead tomorrow, and as long as the precious keeps rolling in, they won't even blink.

But if the stock market keeps plummeting next week and beyond, and the virus really is a crisis, then these cadaverous skinflints have a reason to care about something other than their ill-gotten hoards. And when they vote with their wallets, we all hear the rumble.